Sociology-Education-Ethnicity Flashcards
What are the external factors of ethnic differences?
Cultural deprivation, material deprivation and racism in wider society
What factors are involved in cultural deprivation?
Intellectual and linguistic skills, attitudes and values, and family structure and parental support
What do cultural deprivation theorists argue about intellect and language?
Intellectual and linguistic skills are a major cause of underachievement for many minority children, and that many children from low-income black families lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences, leaving them poorly equipped for school as they haven’t been able to develop reasoning and problem solving skills
What do Bereiter and Engelmann consider about language?
language spoken by low-income black American families is inadequate for educational success as it is ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of expressing abstract ideas
What do statistics show about not speaking English at home and education?
It isn’t a major factor as in 2010 pupils with English as their first language were only 3.2 points ahead of those without English as their first language when it came to gaining 5 GSES A*-C including English and Maths
What do Gillborn and Mirza note?
Indian pupils do very well despite often not having English as their home language
What do some cultural deprivation theorists see as a major cause of failure in many black children?
Motivation, as most children are socialised into mainstream culture that instills ambition, competitiveness and willingness to make sacrifices necessary for long term achievement, but some black children are socialised into a subculture that instils a fatalistic attitude that doesn’t value education, leaving them unequipped for success
What do cultural deprivation theorists argue that the failure of adequate socialisation is due to?
Dysfunctional family structure
What does Moynihan argue about black families?
Many black families are headed by a lone mother so suffer inadequate care as she struggles financially and boys lose a male role model of male achievement (cultural deprivation is a cycle of inadequacy)
What did Murray (New Right) argue, similar to Moynihan?
High rate of lone parenthood and lack of positive male role models lead to underachievement of some minorities
What does Scruton argue?
Low achievement of some minorities is due to failure to embrace mainstream British culture
What does Pryce argue?
Family structure contributes to underachievement in some minorities-Asian families are more resistant to racism as they didn’t suffer slavery
What does Sewell argue is a cause for black boys underachievement?
Problem is a lack of fatherly nurturing (‘tough love’) so black boys struggle with emotional and behavioural difficulties-also cultural differences in upbringing
What happens as a result of absence of the restraining influence of a nurturing father?
Street gangs of other fatherless boys offer black boys ‘perverse love and loyalty’, presenting them with a media inspired role model of anti school black masculinity
What does Arnot describe the gangs ideal to be?
The ultra tough ghetto superstar, an image constantly reinforced through rap lyrics and MTV videos
How does Sewell argue that these gangs lead to underachievement?
They are subject to powerful anti educational peer group pressure as most boys interviewed by Sewell felt that the greatest barrier to success was pressure from other boys, and speaking standard English/doing well in school was viewed with suspicion, and as ‘selling out’ to the white establishment
What does Gillborn say to counteract Sewell?
Not peer pressure, but institutional racism in the education system itself that systematically produces the failure of many black boys
How does Sewell view Indian and Chinese pupils?
As benefiting from supportive families that have an ‘Asian work ethic’ and place a high value on education
What does Lupton argue?
Adult authority in Asian families is similar to authority in school (respectful behaviour is expected from children, which had a knock-on effect in school, as parents were more likely to be supportive of school behaviour policies)
What does a survey by McCulloch show?
Ethnic minority pupils are more likely to aspire to go to university than white students
What may the low levels of aspiration and achievement in white pupils be due to?
A lack of parental support
What did Lupton find about white families?
In a study of four mainly working class schools (two predominantly white, one Pakistani and the fourth was ethnically mixed) and found poorer behaviour in white school though there were less pupils with FSM, and it was blamed on lower levels of parental support and negative attitude held by white working class parents towards education, where ethnic minority parents saw it as ‘a way up in society’
What did Evans find?
Street culture in white working class is brutal and young people have to learn to withstand intimidation/intimidate others and so school becomes a place for power games of the street to be played out, bringing disruption to education
What was one way to attempt to overcome this cultural deprivation?
Compensatory education programmes, such as Operation Head Start in the USA
Why do some sociologists criticise compensatory education?
They see it as an attempt to impose the dominant white culture on children who already have a coherent culture of their own
What two alternatives to compensatory education programmes have been proposed?
Multicultural education (recognising and valuing minority cultures by including them in curriculum) and anti-racist education (challenging prejudice and discrimination that still exists in school/wider society)
Who criticises the cultural deprivation theory of ethnic differences in education?
Driver, Lawrence and Keddie
How does Driver criticise cultural deprivation theory?
Cultural deprivation ignores the positives of ethnic minority families and achievement eg the black Caribbean family provides girls with positive role modes of strong independent women, which is why black girls tend to be more successful in education than black boys
How does Lawrence criticise cultural deprivation theory?
Challenges Pryce’s view that black pupils fail due to a weak culture and low self-esteem, instead it’s due to racism
How does Keddie criticise cultural deprivation theory?
Cultural deprivation is victim blaming, and they are culturally different not deprived. Under achievement is due to the ethnocentric curriculum
What did Palmer find about material deprivation and ethnicity?
1/2 ethnic minority children live in low income households (only 1/4 of white children do), Ethnic minority 2x likely to be unemployed, Their households are 3x likely to be homeless, 1/2 Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers earn less than £7 an hour (1/4 of British workers do)
What in employment is also more likely for ethnic minority workers?
Shift work, and Bangladeshi/Pakistani women are more likely to be engaged in low-paid homeworking
What are the reasons for why some ethnic minorities may be at greater risk of material deprivation resulting from unemployment, low pay and overcrowding?
Many live in economically depressed areas with high unemployment and low wages, cultural factors such as Purdah in some Muslim households, lack of language skills and foreign qualifications not being recognised, asylum seekers not being able to work, and racial discrimination in labour and housing market
How are these inequalities reflected?
In the proportion of children from different ethnic groups that are eligible for FSM, and so the material deprivation explanation argues that such class differences explain why Pakistani pupils tend to do worse than Indian and White pupils
What is Indian achievement like?
Generally above average, and are usually likely to be from better-off backgrounds eg they are the ethnic group most likely to attend private schools (twice the rate of white pupils and 5 times more likely than black pupils)
What happens if class isn’t taken into account when looking at ethnic achievement differences?
There is a danger of overestimating the effect of cultural deprivation and underestimation of the effect of poverty and material deprivation
What statistics of ethnicity override class arguments?
Even Indian and Chinese pupils that are materially deprived, still do better than most. In 2011, 86% of Chinese girls with FSM achieved 5 or more higher GCSEs, compared to 65% of white girls that weren’t eligible for FSM
What did Modoon find?
Children from low-income families did less well but the effects of low income were much less for other ethnic groups than white pupils
What do dome people argue that poverty in ethnic minorities is due to?
Another factor-Racism
What does Mason say?
Discrimination is a continuing and persistent feature of the experience of Britain’s citizens of minority ethnic origin
What does Rex show?
Racial discrimination leads to social exclusion and worsens the poverty faced by ethnic minorities - eg in housing and in jobs (more likely to be forced into substandard accommodation than white people of the same class)
What does Wood et al show?
Study that sent three similar application to job vacancies and the application with the more British sounding name, was more likely to be asked for an interview (1 in 16 ethnic minority applications were offered interviews, compared to 1 in 9 white applications)
What does Wood’s study demonstrate?
Why members of ethnic minorities are more likely to face unemployment and low pay, which then has negative effects on their children’s education
What are the internal factors of ethnic differences in achievement?
Labelling and teacher racism, pupil identities, pupil responses and subcultures, and institutional racism
What did Gillborn and Mirza find?
Black pupils can start school as the highest achievers but have the worst results by the time it gets to GCSEs
What did Strand find?
Analysed entire national cohort of 7-11 year olds and found black Caribbean boys, not entitled to FSM (especially more able) made significantly less progress than white pupils
How do Gillborn, Mirza and Strand demonstrate the importance of internal factors?
Because black pupils start off as the top achievers, and leave as the lowest achievers, it must be due to internal factors, especially as there are claims that in education the effects of cultural deprivation can be seen in children as young as 3 (before they start school)
What do studies generally find about labelling and ethnicity in school?
Teachers often see black and Asian pupils as being far from the ‘ideal pupil’ eg black pupils seen as disruptive, and asian pupils seen as passive which can lead to different treatment by teachers, leading to being disadvantaged and failure
What did Gillborn and Youdell find?
Teacher’s have ‘racialised expectations’, which is why they are quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behaviour
What are the teachers ‘racialised expectations’?
They expected black pupils to present more discipline problems and misinterpreted their behaviour as threatening, or a challenge to authority. So when they acted on this misperception, pupils responded negatively and so further conflict resulted (due to racial stereotypes rather than the actual behaviour of the students, who then begin to feel picked on)
What did Bourne find?
Black pupils tended to be seen as a threat and negatively stereotyped, which leads to exclusion, and why there are higher levels of exclusions of black boys, which then affects achievement (1 in 5 excluded pupils achieve 5 GCSEs)
